Today we will introduce various meanings and usages of adverb よく(well). よくis the adverbial form of adjective よい/いい (good) and is used as an adverb in various meanings. Ms. Hashimoto’s よくmodifies the verb にる (to be alike) and expresses that the degree of what is expressed by the verb is high. More examples: 彼（かれ）はとてもよく働（はたら）く (He works very hard); めがねを変 （か）えたら、よく見（み）えるようになった (I changed my glasses and now I can see well); 複雑（ふくざつ）な話（はなし）で、よくわからなかった (It was a complicated story and I couldn’t understand it well). よく in this meaning is often used to express the speaker’s appreciation or admiration for what someone did, sometimes with slight surprise when it is hard to do. Example: きょうまで、よくがんばったね (You really tried hard until today). It can also be used to express the speaker’s feeling of reproach as in: あんなひどいことをよく言（い）えるものだ (How could he say a terrible thing like that?). Takako’s よく言われる in Situation 1 belongs to another meaning group that is explained in Situation 2.

Situation 2: Mr. Tian and his client Mr. Suzuki are chatting after a business talk.

Tian: Well, no, I don’t. I’d like to see my mother, but I can go back once a year at most.

よく also expresses high frequency, as in Mr. Suzuki’s よく帰（かえ）る( to go home frequently). In this usage, its negative expression is あまり帰らない (to go home not so often) as in Mr. Tian’s sentence, but not よく帰らない.

Bonus Dialogue: Mr. Shiba’s nephew Yuta visits the Shibas after taking the entrance exam for a university in Tokyo.